Questioning to stretch and challenge in a primary classroom

This case study was written by Matthew Shurlock, a primary school teacher.  As you read this case study, reflect on how the teacher considers pitch and depth in their questioning of pupils. Take some time to think about what the teacher does, how they do it, what they might do differently and how this might influence your own practice.   This article will discuss how Blank’s Level Questioning (Blank et al., 1978) can be employed to pitch questions at an appropriate level for individual pupils in Early Years and Key Stage 1. When a question is correctly matched to a pupil’s developmental stage, it becomes possible to move their learning forward through questioning. Once pupils’ question level understanding is developed, the teacher can attempt to deepen the level of questioning by carefully crafting questions that require more thinking to answer.  Blank’s book is subtitled The pre-school years and the development stages used within it are labelled from 2 - 6 years ol